Our Team

Ian is the founder and architect of Project Guardian. He developed the WERP (Wreck Environmental Risk Prioritisation) protocol and the underlying intelligence platform, applying a decade and a half of senior threat-intelligence experience to a domain that has historically been managed reactively. He is a CREST Registered Threat Intelligence Analyst and holds an MSc in International Security Policy (Homeland Security).

Ian's career spans senior intelligence leadership across critical national infrastructure, financial services, and government, most recently as Associate Director of Threat Intelligence Operations and Service Innovation at NCC Group, where he built the global function from a cost centre into a £3M+ revenue line and grew a team to over forty analysts across three continents. He currently serves as Senior Manager — Intelligence at Mubarak Bridge alongside his Project Guardian work.

Jay is the co-principal of Project Guardian and the Chief Operations Officer of Deeptrek, the marine specialist operation that delivers Guardian's in-water capability. He brings over forty years of marine industry experience across diving, ROV/USV systems, custom subsea tooling, and senior project leadership.

Deeptrek's operating lineage traces back to 1986, when Jay founded the first iteration of the team under the name Discovery, working multiple marine projects around the UK coast. The company subsequently relocated and reformed across jurisdictions — Discovery International in Florida, Deeptrek in Texas, and most recently re-established in the UAE — but the team, the brand, and the operating philosophy have remained continuous. Forty years on, Deeptrek is a recognised marine specialist active across deep-water environmental intervention, wreck and salvage leadership, and unmanned surface vessel command-and-control.

Notable past projects include the Shell BC10 deepwater project in Brazil (managed from bid to first oil as RTS Project Manager for Subsea7 / I-Tech7), leadership of Unmanned Surface Vehicle operations across the Middle East for Fugro, and the 2011 Sir Francis Drake expedition off Portobelo, Panama in partnership with explorer Pat Croce, which located two 16th-century vessels believed to be Drake's final ships. Jay has previously produced documentary content for National Geographic.